


Scheherazade

by obelisk13



Category: IT (2017), IT (2019), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Canon Fix-It, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21704239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obelisk13/pseuds/obelisk13
Summary: In the moment before he opened his eyes, he felt he knew exactly what it had been. The doe, he thought. It must’ve been the same one from before, completing its little spooky circle in his life. It would stare meaningfully into his soul with its great big black eyes, darkness reflecting all the way into the back of its skull, and then flick its tail up, prancing off into the forest on the other side of the street. It’s a metaphor, a voice told him, this means something and you’re supposed to appreciate it.But when Richie finally opened his eyes, unscrunching his face from its expression of anticipated impact, there was no doe. No dark eyes of the void. No metaphor at all.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Basically supposed to take place right after the movie ends, but also it's a fix it so Stan's here too. "No one really dies in Derry" was all I heard during the two hours I watched IT 2. This is also a bit of a mix of the book and the movies. The author is dead, /I/ get to choose what's canon. I'll add to the tags as the chapters progress.

It was all over. The fucking clown was dead. The shitty haunted house had collapsed. They had figuratively and literally washed away the blood from the battle and yet Richie could still smell the rusty, copper scent on his hands, embedded in the cracks of his glasses, stained in his shirt. He could still hear Eddie’s dying words echoing around in his mind. 

_ “I fucked your mother.” _

God, if Eddie was here he would fucking kill him because what the fuck. What the fuck. Why’d he have to be so stupid? He could have said literally anything else. Maybe even something cheesy and dumb but god! That would have been better than this. Anything would have been better than this. 

Richie hadn’t even been there while he was dying. Eddie had been all alone, laying against a hard rock. If he had been even just a little more conscious he would have been loudly complaining the whole time. “ _ Don’t fucking leave me here by myself, asshole! Someone pick me up, this cave floor is digging into my back and if I have to go see another chiropractor the bill is going to be on  _ you.”

Richie laughed to himself, sitting on the moth eaten sheets of the bed in his hotel room. He laughed until tears were running down his cheeks, holding his head in his heavy hands. He spent 27 years missing Eddie. 27 long, boring, lonely years. He’d forgotten everything else, his hometown, Pennywise, even the losers club. But he remembered the sweetest boy he’d ever met, hopelessly obsessive and stubborn, who talked even more than he did and was always worried about something. He remembered the freckles lightly dusting his nose and the soft curl of his hair. He remembered the way he clung to Richie’s shirt when he was scared or bumped into him with the sharp corner of his elbow as he laughed. 

And when he got the call from Mike about coming back, he remembered all the fear and terror too. He remembered Eddie, but he also remembered how scared he was of him finding out his secret. Terrified of having to relive his younger days of being tormented. Growing up and moving to California had finally given Richie enough breathing room to figure out who he was and sure, he wasn’t totally out. He was still wary of what his audiences might think if they knew. Yes, it was the 21st century and all that, and it was certainly a different time from when he grew up, and he knew if he did come out it probably wouldn’t be as big of a deal as he always imagined it to be. But there was still that fear in the back of his mind that worried about what people would think of him, what they would say, what would happen if they knew little Richie Trashmouth Tozier had been a faggot after all. And he hated that that still got to him. He hated being afraid of that.

So Richie had spent the better part of two decades in the shadows of bars and sketchy alleyways with guys whose faces he’d forget as soon as he stepped back into the light of a streetlamp, the smell of alcohol and vomit heavy in the air. He’d kiss strangers and imagine that it was someone else, someone with darker hair, darker eyes, freckles on his nose, but older now, with a little furrowed wrinkle between his brows. And when it was over and he melted back into the crowd he’d pretend it never happened. He knew he was pathetic. He knew he was a coward. He always had been. Time really didn’t change anything.

Not even Eddie, who was exactly how Richie had imagined him to be all grown up, wrinkled brow and all. Over dinner in the Chinese restaurant he’d learned he had a boring job, a boring car, and a boring marriage. In fact, from the way Eddie described it, it just sounded like he’d married his mother - which was disturbing on ten different levels Richie didn’t want to unpack all at once. Seeing him again, he really hoped that he would find that after all this time, this endless pining had been totally fabricated and overomantacised by his dumb lonely heart. He hoped he would find Eddie’s obsessive tendencies annoying and his constant nitpicking unattractive. He hoped this dinner would make him realize he’d been stuck on this guy for no reason. That with one night he would never have to think about him ever again. 

But the opposite was true. Eddie had grown up into himself and he just reminded him of home, what little he could remember. And he was still so easy to tease and rile up and Richie just wanted to wrap him up and take him home - fuck the clown and fuck the town.

But of course the rest of the Losers wouldn’t let that happen. So of course they had to fight whatever was down in the sewers. And of course, Eddie fucking Kaspbrak, the sweetest man on earth, had to be the one out of the six of them impaled by the goddamn clown. It was like god was personally fucking with him - giving him everything he wanted and then, with the drop of a hat, taking it all back and leaving him with nothing.

It had taken a lot from the losers to not let Richie stay down there, to keep him from trying to rush back in and save Eddie. And Richie knew if they hadn’t, there was no doubt he would have stayed there by Eddie’s side until the very end, walls crashing down around them. He wanted that. He still did. It felt like his heart was already rotting from the inside out. If there was no Eddie, there was no reason for his heart to be there in his chest anyway. The thought of taking the plane back to California, having to return to his shitty little apartment, all alone again - he couldn’t do it. His whole life just felt like it was leading up to the moment he’d see Eddie again and now that he was gone… Well he didn’t really know how to move on from here.

Richie stuffed his wrinkled clothes into his bag, zipping it shut and realizing how little he had brought. He lifted his head to the other side of the room where Eddie’s suitcases were still sitting, his little bag of toiletries propped up against the pillow. The first night they stayed at the hotel, Eddie went on a mini rampage, turning the room inside out, trying to see if there were any bugs in the mattress. And then, of course, the next morning he had made the bed back up, making sure the corners were nice and straight, grumbling about a weird stain on one of the sheets. Richie grazed a hand across the bed covers, imagining where Eddie’s hands had been - not daring to think about how creepy this must seem to an observer. 

An awful, terrible thought ran through his head. He didn’t know why, but he wanted to open one of Eddie’s suitcases. Just to see. He just wanted to see the last ghosts of Eddie that were hanging around the room, capture his light that was fading all too fast. 

Richie heaved the largest suitcase up onto the bed, thinking to himself about how much Eddie would hate him for doing so, (“ _ You’re getting dirt from the wheels on the sheets _ !”) and zipped it open. Shirts and sweaters and cardigans and carefully pleated pants and fashionable jeans for middle aged men in failing marriages, all folded neatly in squares of blue and green and beige and gray. A faint whiff of cheap cologne nearly broke him down. It was all too Eddie Kaspbrak. 

What was going to happen to all of his clothes when Eddie’s wife found out what happened? She would have no use for any of his shit. She’d probably sell it or donate it all away. Richie felt like he was going to be sick. He let his hand trace the cool fabric and he knew this was crazy, he knew he must be a freak, fondling the last of Eddie’s possessions like fucking Gollum. If Eddie was here, Richie would do an impression, just to see Eddie look at him with disdain or roll his eyes or maybe, just maybe, even laugh.  _ But Eddie isn’t here _ , a voice mocked from inside his head.

Before he could think about what he was doing, Richie grabbed a sweater off of the top, a dark navy blue, made of stuff softer than the bed he had back home in LA. He shoved it into his own bag and zipped it and Eddie’s suitcase back up. Taking a deep breath and wiping away the tears he didn’t even realize were on his cheeks, he grabbed his bag and his keys and made for the door, only sweeping one last look around the room before he forced himself out into the hallway. 

He was going to get the hell out of here. Coming back had been a mistake after all, that was sure enough. And maybe the other Losers didn’t feel that way - no they definitely didn’t feel that way. They had all come back, had a happy time fighting off their past and hugging each other and making out or whatever it was they were doing (probably having drinks at the bar downstairs from what he could hear). But Richie didn’t get that ending. His past was still with him. He still wasn’t able to own up to any of it. And he certainly wasn’t able to tell Eddie - let alone get to hug him in the aftermath. He wasn’t going to complain or make the other Losers feel bad about it because really, that was the last thing they deserved right now. It wasn’t their fault. But Richie couldn’t stand it another second. To him, if Eddie wasn’t there to celebrate with them, there wasn’t a reason to celebrate at all.

Richie marched down the stairs and glanced into the bar area where the other five Losers were drinking and laughing at something Bill had said. He carefully avoided the floorboards that creaked (Eddie had pointed them all out when they had first arrived. Had said something about the structural integrity or something or other that really he’d expected Ben to say) and his hand barely made it to the knob of the front door before Beverly called out to him. 

“Hey! There you are! You’re missing the party!”

“C’mere, Rich,” Ben was already mixing up a drink for him, “You like bourbon?”

There was nothing Richie wanted to do more than get fucking wasted, besides of course getting the hell out of Derry, “Not- not right now guys. I gotta… I should be heading out.” 

“Oh come on man,” Mike was giving him a hard look now too, “Just one for old time’s sake?”

If Eddie was here he’d be pissed if he heard talk of Richie drinking right before driving. If Eddie was here.  _ If Eddie was here if Eddie was here if Eddie was here _ \- that seemed to be all he could think about. Richie swallowed, shaking his head, “Nah it’s okay… I shouldn’t - I’ve got a plane to catch and a show I have to do tomorrow… Sorry guys I uh…” Half of that was true. He didn’t have a plane home yet but his travel agent could find one easy enough. But the shows were definitely cancelled. “Sorry… I just - I really gotta go.” 

A worried sigh fell over them all, but Beverly was the first to get up and hug him, “We’re gonna miss you, trashmouth.”

“I won’t,” Stanley said, raising his glass and taking a swig, trying (and failing) to hide a smile, not even getting up from the bar.

God he was gonna miss Stanley. 

Ben came up and shook his hand like he was Julius fucking Ceasar, gripping his forearm, “You better send us tickets to your next show.”

Richie did his best imitation of a smile, “Of course. I’ll make sure to tell the security guards to throw out a group of five idiots that try to come waltzing in saying they know me.”

When Mike approached him, Richie held out his hand hoping he would just shake it like a normal person unlike Ben but of course he was greeted by the most firm and life-squeezing bearhug he’d ever received. He always did give the best hugs. “Remember to come back to visit… and don’t wait thirty years either!”

Finally, Bill shook his hand properly, giving him that same goofy smile from back when they were kids. Okay, it wasn’t a goofy smile, it was pretty handsome on him now. “See you around, Richie.” The stutter had gone away again, but he wouldn’t have minded to hear it one last time. He never really minded it at all, truth be told. He only ever teased him about it because he’d found it cute and endearing - same reason he had teased Eddie about anything. There he went thinking about Eddie again. Beep beep.

“See ya.” He gave a thin smile, raising a hand in goodbye, and he walked out the door without a second glance. If he thought about how long it might be until he ever saw them again, he didn’t think he’d ever leave. And leaving was the only chance he had at forgetting Eddie again. Maybe the killer clown’s curse had lifted and they’d all be granted a perfect memory of what had happened but jesus christ Richie hoped not. Maybe when he got back to LA he could see how much cocaine was needed to completely wipe someone’s brain. 

The night air was cool and stung his eyes on the walk to his rental car. He was still pretty psyched to have snagged that red convertible from the rental place - being a rich and famous comedian had its perks. After stuffing his bag in the back, not even daring to look at it, he started the car up and drove out onto the main street. Everything was dark and empty this time of night, the streetlamps illuminating the fog that creeped along the pavement. He drove past the old theater and the arcade, the pharmacy and the alley where Eddie patched Ben up. He passed the kissing bridge where he had stopped by earlier that morning to re-etch their initials into the wood. 

R + E. 

What if Eddie had seen it. What if he had ever thought about it and connected it to their names. Richie + Eddie. That’s really why he had done it as a kid. He’d been pissed and hormonal, having to stare down at the little disgusting remarks sprawled across the plank. “ _ SHOW ME YOUR COCK QUEER AND I’LL CUT IT OFF YOU _ ” and “ _ STICK NAILS IN EYES OF ALL FAGGOTS (FOR GOD) _ !” shown for the whole world to see. Even now, almost thirty years later, he felt like puking. They were just words, he knew that, he knew they couldn’t hurt him. But the words never left him. He never let them go. They chanted in his head as a kid when he lie awake at night or when he glanced over at Eddie, smiling, laughing, perfect Eddie, and even decades later, every time he had been with someone the words danced around and sang, forcing him to let go of another man’s hand, break away from a kiss, wipe his mouth and pretend it hadn’t happened. 

But when he wrote it, R + E, he hoped that would be what caught Eddie’s eye. Not the curses and slurs and death threats. He wrote it so Eddie would look past those and just think about Richie. He knew it was stupid. He knew there was no way he could know it’d been him, and even if he did, he would never think the E had been referring to Eddie. But it was a gesture Richie had made nonetheless. He carved their names into a piece of wood that stood like a holy vessel, carrying all the tiny initials and cupid struck hearts of every lovesick fool in Derry. Every Laura and Dean, Todd and Katie, Jenny and Curtis, G + H, S + N, M + F. The alphabet was being rewritten just to fit two clumsy names together side by side over a handwritten note in class, hands brushing in the hallway, a kiss on the hood of a car. And Richie wanted in. He wanted that. He wanted that with Eddie. And so he carved their letters in too, wished on a plank of wood older than either of them that they would have that one day. It was the least they deserved.

But sometimes things just don’t work out the way you expect them to. His mother liked to say that a lot, he remembered. Now more than ever, he came to understand why she liked to say this. 

He was approaching the exit sign of Derry. “ _ Come back soon!”  _ said a little faded cartoon beaver _ ,  _ waving at a passing car in the dust clouds.  _ Not in your lifetime _ , thought Richie,  _ not soon, not ever.  _

As Richie wondered vaguely if there was some way to leave a bad Yelp review for a whole town, he saw something cross out from the trees and limp out onto the stretch of road ahead of him. He slammed down hard on the breaks, tires screeching, the smell of hot rubber in the air. He had shut his eyes in panic, too afraid of what would happen next, thankful there hadn’t been the telltale feeling of a speedbump passing underneath the car or body thrown across the windshield. He’d seen enough movies to know how gruesome it could get and wasn’t entirely thrilled to experience it first hand. 

In the moment before he opened his eyes, he felt he knew exactly what it had been.  _ The doe, _ he thought. It must’ve been the same one from before, completing its little spooky circle in his life. It would stare meaningfully into his soul with its great big black eyes, darkness reflecting all the way into the back of its skull, and then flick its tail up, prancing off into the forest on the other side of the street.  _ It’s a metaphor _ , a voice told him,  _ this means something and you’re supposed to appreciate it.  _

But when Richie finally opened his eyes, unscrunching his face from its expression of anticipated impact, there was no doe. No dark eyes of the void. No metaphor at all. 

No, it was none of those things.

Because what he had almost hit on this empty stretch of highway at this ungodly hour of the night, wasn’t a “what” at all. 

It was Eddie.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I will come back from the dead for you.”
> 
> \- Richard Siken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title for this work comes from the same title by Richard Siken in his book Crush.

It’s dark underneath the surface of the water, the rare streams of light playing on the waves of gray and algae green like the fluttering curtains in his childhood bedroom on hot summer nights. It’s quiet down here, the sounds of laughter and screaming muffled as if one were listening from the other end of a very long tunnel.

Eddie is thirteen years old and standing on his tippy-toes at the bottom of the quarry, looking up at the way the sun split and refracted across the tiny waves splashing above him. He can see his friends from down here, what’s left of them anyway, horsing around and trying to drown each other. 

His eyes stung from opening them underwater and a voice in the back of his head, sounding a great deal like his mother, was saying to him, “ _ If you open your eyes underwater you’ll get diseases shot straight up into your brain. You’ll get tapeworms wriggling up your nostrils and they’ll dig a hole right through your skull. You’ve probably already swallowed gallons worth of Derry pee by now.”  _ But it was too quiet under water to hear the voice that clearly. 

He was afraid. Terrified, of what lurked among the reeds - was that a leaf that grazed against his ankle or the scaley palm of a lake monster getting ready to attack and-

He pushed it out of his mind. He’d been getting better at that lately. Pushing himself into scarier situations, purposefully testing himself. If any of the other losers had realized what he’d been doing they would’ve probably called him a masochist - correction: Richie would call him a masochist. But it was something he felt he had to do. Ever since the time he nearly died in the Neibolt house or down in the sewers, he knew something in his life had to change. He’d been scared his whole life, and he still was. His fear wrapped around him in thick icy tendrils and before he’d know it, the fear might choke him until he ended just like his mother, just as paralyzed and afraid. He knew how easy it would be to fall into the same pattern, he knew because every single day he still had that voice in his head, telling himself in excruciating detail how he could die from this or die from that. And he was sick of it. He was just so done with dying.

So every day he pushed himself to look that fear right in the eye, any time it approached him. And right now, he was afraid of what hid deep under the water. He was afraid of what brushed up against his ankle. He was afraid as he looked up at his ever-growing-smaller gaggle of friends, splashing each other up above him.

Beverly had left almost the day after the fight down in the sewers to go off to Chicago where her aunt lived. He never really learned what was wrong in her home life - only rumors. But there was no way any of them could be true. He knew how games of telephone went with middle schoolers, the story only got more outrageous as it was left to fester in the preteen petri dish. But he knew about her dad, the school janitor, and from what he had seen and heard from him - well, he couldn’t imagine him as a very pleasant person to live with. And so hearing of her flight only filled the rest of the losers with some relief, as did the subsequent hospitalization of Mr. Marsh due to head trauma.

And then there was Bill. He only left about a month after Beverly, so close to the end of Summer. His leaving had been planned, the Denbroughs couldn’t go on living in Derry when it felt like the ghost of their son was still hanging around. It took some convincing and a lot of late night fights in the kitchen, from what Bill had told him, in order to convince Mrs. Denbrough to leave their boy’s room behind, to pack everything up and start fresh in a seaside town on Rhode Island. That had been hard, Bill leaving. On all the losers. He was their leader, their hero. Or at least, he was Eddie’s hero. He’d been one of his first friends in Derry, always showing him kindness and respect he’d never gotten from anyone else. Eddie looked up to Bill like he would look up to a big brother, to a father figure.

He didn’t know when he had closed his eyes, it must have happened when he started remembering two of his best friends that had decided to leave him, but when he opened them again, the tiny pocket of air left inside him was sucked out like a vacuum.

Richie’s face was right in front of him, so close there was nothing but his buck toothed grin encompassing Eddie’s whole field of vision. He’d been so shocked that balloons of air came pouring out of his mouth, all the air he had left, and now he was suffocating. He was going to die. 

Of course, his first instinct was to thrash and kick Richie, and the dumb bastard was laughing at him. It made an odd ringing sound underwater, like a mermaid’s song or a ghostly shriek. But soon his anger turned icy cold again as Eddie threw up his hands around his throat. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even find the strength in himself to push himself up to the surface. There was an intense pressure on his body, pushing down, down, down, down into the depths to be buried under the sand and weeds. He was gonna be fish food.

Richie noticed this change immediately and hooked his arms under Eddie’s armpits, like an awkward hug between teens slow dancing at prom. His first instinct was to push him away, his skin screaming from just the slightest touch. It felt like Richie was burning him with a red hot poker and he wanted to get away, it was too much. But Rich held on tight and kicked his legs, flapping his left arm a bit, ignoring the feeble attempts to brush him off, and pulled Eddie to the surface. 

When he broke through and tried to suck down as much air as his lungs would allow, he wheezed and choked. Water was sloshing around in his chest and he kept coughing up more when he tried to take in a breath. Faintly, he could hear the other losers shouting, asking what was wrong. Again, it was like he was still underwater, his ears were filled up and it was like they were all speaking some language he just couldn’t understand, like the way all the adults talked in The Peanuts. Richie was there, shaking his shoulders trying to say something, shouting his name maybe?

“ _ Breathe, Eddie! Remember your breathing _ !”

Yeah no shit he was remembering his breathing. But the air around him just wouldn’t go down. He needed his inhaler.  _ It’s a placebo, Eddie. It’s bullshit and you know it. There’s nothing wrong with you. You don’t need it.  _ This was another voice inside him too. He liked this one better, it sounded a lot like Richie if he was being honest.  _ You don’t need it. There’s nothing wrong with you. _

Bullshit. He couldn’t breathe. He needed to get to his aspirator or he was definitely going to die. 

And somehow Richie knew that too, his eyes wide and afraid. He grabbed Eddie under his arm, dragging him back to shore, and in the process accidentally dunked Eddie underneath the water a few more times. After water had been shot up into his nose, they finally made it to the rocky shore and Richie pulled Eddie to the land, laying him gently on his back. The other losers were right there with him, Ben, Stanley, Mike, all worried and blocking out the sun, burying Eddie in their shadows. Richie was saying something, asking Eddie something, but all Eddie could do was point to where he knew he had left his shorts where his inhaler lay in the back pocket. Richie jumped up and ran out of his vision and Eddie laid his head back, closing his eyes and coughing up water.

  
  
  


And then he opened his eyes. And he was forty years old again. And he was alive.

The sweet shock of life flooded back into his body and with it, he was thrown into a coughing fit. When people think of rebirth they think of crystal clear water and sparkling skies, the heavens heralding a new start, a new beginning. Eddie quickly realized that that was a load of bullshit. The night had made it impossible to see, but he was on all fours, throwing up blood and gray water on the shore of the quarry, his arms and legs shaking so bad he thought the earth was going to tear itself open and drag Eddie back down. 

_ I’m alive. _

It was all he could think.  _ I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive _

And then the horrible pain bloomed from inside his chest, reaching out and choking him.  _ Oh god I’m alive. _

It didn’t actually hurt as much as he imagined it would, not that he imagined being impaled that much. He was more prone to imagining car accidents, plane crashes, elevator cords snapping, slipping in the shower… the list went on. But impalement was never high on that list.

The pain was more of a sensation of intense pressure and flayed skin. He could compare it to slamming a door on his finger or a paper cut or perhaps a more recent injury of getting stabbed in the goddamn face. And that didn’t even hurt that much either. It was the shock that got to him more than anything.

Once he had finally puked up the last of his guts, he rolled over onto his back, safely a few feet apart from the pile of sickness he’d just created. It took everything within him not to reach for an inhaler that wasn’t even there. He still felt like at any second, Richie would come running back and hand it to him. He could feel the other three loser’s shadows hovering over him. They were here with him. 

He tried to calm himself down.  _ Breathe, Eddie. Remember your breathing.  _ It was Richie’s voice again. 

_ In through the nose, out through the mouth. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.  _

His breath still stuttered and tripped over itself, taking in gasps of air, failing to hold on to it, and letting go in short little bursts. He was crying and choking and shaking and he couldn’t breathe and Eddie was furious with himself. He could see himself in an almost out of body experience, laying on the hard rocks, sobbing like he was thirteen years old again, having a panic attack because he wasn’t dead, dying because he never really learned how to be alive. 

_ I swear to god, if I die right after surviving impalement by a fucking killer space clown all because of a fucking asthma attack- _

Sheer anger pushed him off the ground. He groaned through the uncomfortable way the flesh in his chest flexed and tore as he stood up. Looking down at the open wound, he realized he’d been clutching something in his hand up to his heart the whole time. It was Richie’s jacket. He couldn’t even remember Richie putting it on him. All he had seen in the cave as he lay dying was Richie’s face. And when he closed his eyes, he saw him there too. His glasses that were too big for him, his dark hair, his crooked nose and lopsided grin, his eyes, like chipped marbles, like the shimmering lakewater underneath the waves, like eggshell summer skies.

_ Oh Richie. _

He needed to see him again. Even if it was the last thing he did. It was all he could do. Give him back his jacket and say,  _ Hey, you forgot this. I missed you. I’ve always missed you. Please don’t leave me again. _

Oh shit. Fuck. How long had he been dead? He glanced down at his watch, pressing on the little LED light. It was the next day. Late, obviously. Richie was probably on the other side of the country now. Forgetting everything again. Would he even want his jacket back with all the blood and vomit chunks on it? Fine. Richie was out of the question. He was gone. Eddie could still make it back to the hotel, alert some other loser who was hopefully still kicking around and force them to take him to the fucking hospital. 

Pulling the jacket on, cold and shivering, he stumbled along the stream. He knew the dam they had built as kids must be nearby and from there he could find his way out of the foliage. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked as he made his way, weaving through bushes and avoiding low hanging branches until he found himself out onto an empty stretch of road. 

He was shambling his way out when bright lights raced towards him, tires screeched. It all happened so quickly, he didn’t even have time to be afraid. It was like reliving the car crash from when Mike called him, except this time he was watching it happen from the outside looking in. He was quite literally a deer caught in headlights. The only thing he could think to do was to outstretch his hands in a pitiable effort to keep the great hulking metallic monster at bay. 

And the car stopped, mere seconds before colliding into Eddie, his outstretched hands landing on the burning hood of a convertible. Profanities bubbled up inside him, threatening to spill over, all accumulating from his time spent in New York. He felt his head ready to fire off from his spine like a rocket as he opened his mouth to shout and yell and curse out whoever the dumb ass fucking driver was who thought to fucking speed along an empty stretch of road at night with the wild abandonment of a toddler playing with trucks. 

But his eyes strained in the bright lights, peering into the windshield and a new wash of mute anger fell over him.

It was Richie.


End file.
